1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a luminescent dye compound used for a method for controlling traveling of a traveling articles including automatic guided vehicles such as an industrial robot, and a laminated article for detection and an ink composition for detection used for the method
2. Description of the Related Art
As a method for controlling traveling of an architectural robot, a method has been suggested in which a guidepath is embedded under a road surface, and a current is applied to generate a magnetic field for controlling (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 60(1985) -31620). However, this method cannot be applied for floors of an office or a department store in which various variations in layout are required since the embedding cost is high, and since, as the most important problem, it is very difficult to change a track. On the other hand, as a guiding method in which the guidepath is not installed on the floor, there is known a method for traveling control in which a laser beam, ultrasonic wave or light emitting diode beam is applied toward a wall, a reflected wave from the wall is detected and a traveling machine moves with keeping a constant distance from the wall (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) Nos. 57(1982)-155610, 3(1991)-228105). However, there are troubles in this method that when a wall has unevenness, a reflected wave cannot be detected due to scattering and an automatic guided vehicle collides with the wall, and further, when an obstacle is placed between a wall and the automatic guided vehicle, a reflected wave generated by collision of an irradiation wave with the obstacle is mistook for a reflected wave from the wall, and the automatic guided vehicle deviates from the track and cannot travel along the wall. Further, there has been suggested a guiding system in which an infrared ray source is installed on the ceiling, an infrared ray is transmitted toward a floor surface, and an automatic guided vehicle is guided by this infrared ray (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 5(1993)-150827). However, this system has problems that when an infrared ray is disturbed by an obstacle, it cannot function at all, as well as the apparatus and installing procedure thereof need high cost.
Recently, to solve the above-described problem, there has been suggested an automatic guided vehicle guiding system in which a guide line is drawn on a floor surface with a material containing a luminescent dye as a main component, and the traveling of the automatic guided vehicle is controlled with detecting a light emitted from the luminescent dye by a photosensor installed on the automatic guided vehicle (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) Nos. 6(1994)-149350 and 8(1996)-22322).
In these methods, a luminescent dye which is exciting and emits a light by absorbing an ultraviolet ray, visible light or infrared ray is installed on a guidepath, and the resulting emitted light is detected by a photosensor installed on an automatic guided vehicle for conducting automatic guide, and the characteristic thereof is that the guidepath can be installed inexpensively without requiring a special construction.
The present inventors have found during the investigation of automatic controlled traveling that when automatic traveling control is conducted by a known method (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 6(1994)-149350), a lot of malfunctions occur and the method is practically problematical.
The present inventors have intensively studied a cause which brings about malfunction, and consequently, have found that there are two causes as a cause which brings about malfunction, as described below:
(1) Sufficient emission strength cannot be obtained and therefore detection is impossible.
(2) An irradiation light is reflected from floor, wall or scattered and therefore a photo-detecting apparatus malfunctions.